A Mighty Scare

This happened in mid-August:

In the days leading up to my PhD defense, there was much knitting being done. Partly I was trying to make a deadline so I could give the shawl to my advisor as a thank you gift, but mostly it was to give me something to focus on to manage my nerves. Apparently I didn't focus enough, because I ended up with a stray eyelet.

I was 4-5 rows past the mistake when I noticed it, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to fix it without ripping back that far. I took it in to my LYS and they tried to fix it, but once I was back home and looking at it, I wasn't satisfied with the fix.

So I did this:

I have never been so scared. I pulled my needles out and ripped back 4 rows. I had more than 250 live stitches just a hair's breadth away unravelling into the last eyelet section ... something I was sure I couldn't recover from if it happened. Without a care for direction, I carefully slipped every stitch back on my needle, holding my breath the entire time (which also helped me not throw up). It was nerve wracking.

I managed to pick them up without missing any, and the next row I knit was slow going as I had to reorient every stitch properly. But I did it!!! (I'm a pretty novice knitter, and this is probably the biggest fix I've ever had to do.)

I successfully defended my PhD, but did not get the shawl done in time. I'm working on the last 4-5 rows now and hope to have it done and blocked by the end of September.

Ardent by Janina Kallio
Hazel Knits Entice in Indigo

This has been a project of firsts ... first major lace project, first major error, first major fix, and first of my big projects almost done!